This meeting included secular and other religious Universities and focused on identifying how to incorporate HIV and Gender more fully in teaching, research, and outreach services of Universities.  

Gender and HIV are closely linked.  Girls are often under-empowered to make good healthy decisions and cannot refuse sexual advances of senior men.  Young ladies also have few economic strengths and turn to men to 'help' pay for school fees or life's necessities.  

If a woman's husband dies, culturally the man's brother has a 'right' to step in to take the woman as his wife (even if he already has one).  If the woman's husband died from HIV, and she has it, this will contribute to the spread of HIV.  On the other hand, the woman may be exposed by the brother that inherits her.

Another problem that women face is that they often do not know the laws that protect her rights to property if the husband dies.  Many families take advantage of this, and if a woman's husband dies from HIV, they will come claim the house and all possessions and leave the woman with her children destitute. It is a tragic and common phenomena. 

This workshop was an effort to assure that these serious issues get incorporated in Univesrity programmes.  

Unfortunately, many of the people who attended this meeting represent either HIV or Gender concerns and did not overtly discuss how the two issues can be addressed.  Doug may play a role in thinking about these issues more fully.